


Thoughts from the After

by Akzeal



Category: Transformers Animated (2007)
Genre: Gen, Musing, persuasive
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-29
Updated: 2012-11-29
Packaged: 2017-11-19 20:53:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 966
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/577530
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Akzeal/pseuds/Akzeal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After death, Prowl thinks about what he's learned in the After.</p><p>Originally a persuasive essay for my English class.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Thoughts from the After

Thoughts from the After

  
It's funny, the things you learn when you're dead. See, when you're dead you can see pretty much everything. It's like a big viewscreen, or window. And of course there's mechs to talk to... My old master's here, and of course there are Decepticons as well. I actually listened to them, because they couldn't hurt me, and that's when I started looking. That's when I learned that everything we were told was just propaganda. I mean everything... even the reason for the draft. I had wondered about that, at the time, why there was a draft when the Great War was ended, Decepticons safely off-planet1. That's why I tried to dodge the draft... I didn't care for war. If I had known then that the Autobots had come to power with an expansionist agenda2... Well, I still would have dodged it, but I would have understood why the draft was there.

  
Of course, that was the least of the things they, the government, lied about. Where should I start...? With what they did in Project Omega3, creating mechs who were smart enough to yearn for peace even after been artificially limited so they wouldn't crack from the stress of being nothing more than living weapons? Or the way those poor dumb mechs could only function when slaved to a smarter mech to give them orders4? How about the workers, poor nameless, faceless mechs, color-coded to their functions? I've heard, Blitzwing said that, "The Autobots never could have gotten Project Omega online if not for the slavish efforts of their hordes of workerbots."5 I think he was right, but of course no-one ever hears about them.

  
I know. I'll start with this. I always thought that Ultra Magnus, our- The Autobot's leader, at least cared about the mechs he lead, about the civilians, the masses. Yes, the same masses who were nameless and faceless. But like I said, you learn things when you're dead. Especially when you can talk to the ones directly involved. Starscream's here, and from him I've learned what really happened to create those flying mechs of whom Ultra Magnus is so proud. I've learned he hacked Starscream to copy flight-codes. That's bad enough, just a step above rape, but then he needed to find a mech to put the codes into. The ethical thing would be to ask for volunteers, or to ask the medics whom they think could survive without turning into a psychopath. That's not what Ultra Magnus did. He asked for someone disposable- Just like that! "Find me someone disposable," that's what he said word for word6. He just admitted that he thought that way... and then Sentinel said he found two, and they took these two young workers, and they don't even try to ask or anything, just slap wings on them and give them the code. Granted, the mechs would have died without medical care, but experimenting on them shouldn't have been required for them to get that care!7

  
Even thinking about it works me up. Just the fact that he said that... I've been in the Guard. Unwillingly, but I was in. Talk doesn't go like that. A Sergent will say he wants a 'suitable' mech, and sure, it means 'disposable,' and we all knew that, but the fiction was maintained. Ultra Magnus... he couldn't even pretend to care. That's... bad.

  
Another example of just how twisted the Autobots really are. There was this mech, named 'Wasp' in Boot Camp. I never knew him, not really, but Bumblebee did. They didn't get along, right from the start. To be honest, Wasp was a bit of a bully, pulled some real mean tricks on Bumblebee. So, when there was a transmission on Decepticon frequencies, and Wasp was outside the building, Bumblebee was naturally happy, sure he'd found a spy. He tried to gather more evidence, and didn't really come up with anything, until Longarm, another cadet, told Bumblebee to check Wasp's locker. Now, what they didn't know then was that Longarm was the spy, and he'd planted a communicator in Wasp's locker. Shouldn't have made a difference, though. Wasp should have gotten a trial. They could even have had a medic look at his memories! They didn't do any of that, just carted Wasp away, on an actual hand-cart, while he screamed his innocence. The poor mech spent I don't even know how long in prison, and he came out crazed, formerly elegant speech replaced with this weird buzzing accent, and the only thing he could focus on was swearing revenge on Bumblebee.8

  
I could find out what happened in that prison, if I really wanted, but frankly, I'm afraid to. There's a lot of mechs here who died in there, and I know that a perfectly sane, if slightly sadistic, individual was sent there, and a complete crackpot came out. He was sent there with no trial, with not even the chance to tell his side of the story, and based on evidence and testimony given by a known victim with every reason to lie to make him suffer. Bumblebee wasn't lying, but how could anyone be sure at the time?

  
I could go on. Talk about the Decepticon Registration Act near the begining of the Great War9, or the way Autobots are always told they are just 'cogs in the great machine,'10 or the way my friend and the only truly good commander in the Autobots was nearly kicked out because of a mistake that wasn't his fault11... I don't think I need to. I think I've said enough. Everything they told us was just lies, and now... Well, now I think that the Decepticons might have been right all along.

**Author's Note:**

> My citations, if you want them.
> 
> 1 "Five Servos of Doom." Transformers Animated. 4 April 2009 Television  
> 2 Sorenson, Jim, and Bill Forster. The AllSpark Almanac II. IDW Publishing, 2010. Print.  
> 3 "The Thrill of the Hunt." Transformers Animated. 19 January 2008 Television  
> 4 Ibid  
> 5 Sorenson, Jim, and Bill Forster. The AllSpark Almanac II. IDW Publishing, 2010. Print.  
> 6 Isenberg, Marty. "First (and Second) in Flight." 2008 IDW Publishing. In-package comic with toys.  
> 7 Ibid  
> 8 "Autoboot Camp." Transformers Animated. 3 June 2008 Television  
> 9 Sorenson, Jim, and Bill Forster. The AllSpark Almanac II. IDW Publishing, 2010. Print.  
> 10 "Home is Where the Spark is." Transformers Animated. 5 January 2008 Television  
> 11 "Along Came a Spider." Transformers Animated. 16 February 2008 Television


End file.
